Exhibition catalogue: David Seidner, Le Promeneur, 25 euros
Sold at the Foundation' shop, 5 avenue Marceau
The exhibition will be closed on Thursday January 1th 2009
11 am to 6 pm
Last admission 5:30 pm
Euros 5
Euros 3 - students, under 25's, senior citizens, "Amis des Musées"
Free for the unemployed and children under the age of ten
Euros 3 - groups
Tél.: +33 (0)1 44 31 64 31
Métro: Alma Marceau
Bus: 42 - 63 - 80 - 92 - 72
Parking: avenue George V
3 rue Léonce Reynaud
75116 Paris
The taking of photographs is strictly forbidden.
I first met David Seidner in New York at the beginning of the 1980s. He was not yet the artist he would become, however one realised straightaway, when listening to him, that he was going to occupy a major place in the history of photography. He was extremely cultured, his French was impeccable, his taste faultless. We rapidly became friends and he soon began to work for Yves Saint Laurent. I remember perfectly the time I said to him: "David, if you can photograph a woman, the Eiffel Tower and a bunch of roses at the same time, then the picture for the new fragrance Paris is yours." He did so and this photo would soon sprawl over magazines across the world. Of course there was a woman, the Eiffel Tower and a bunch of roses, but above all there was a photo. David made no sacrifices to facility, to "prettiness". Throughout his life he conserved the rigour that goes with creativity. The works we present here figure among his last. His swan song. One can but admire his mastery and technique, whilst being overwhelmed by the emotion welling up at every instant. His flowers, with their dazzling tonalities, place him alongside works he admired beyond all others: Manet’s pastels. His nudes are a lesson in dignity and owe nothing to cheap voyeurism.
I liked David very much and i am delighted to show him that through this exhibition. And to express my admiration.
With this exhibition we wish to pay tribute to the artist David Seidner, who, in seeking to forge his identity, draws both a universal dimension from the history of art and vital substance from contemporary art.
If Memory may be spoken of as an artistic movement, there is no doubt that Seidner’s work has its place there.
Memory, indeed, of the artists that he etches in platinum, like classical busts, timeless icons of our history. Appropriating and communicating, he draws up a catalogue of form to which his conviction brings a soul-like solemnity.
Thus the flesh of his nudes, academic and devoid of all artifice, illustrates his quest for pictorial, human and photographic material.
Favouring modest decorative elements such as wire, broken mirror fragments or painted walls showing the patina of time, he plays with chemistry, layering Ektachromes, over-printing negatives, interposing sheets of painted glass between the lens and his subject and transforming a camera shot into a performance.
His obsessive search leads him to become his own object of experimentation. His nude self-portraits immortalize him, much as would a statue.
Memory again, tirelessly fashioned, in which the process finds its meaning and perfection comes to life.
On the journey from the fragmented portraits of youth to the Orchids, as vulnerable and indomitable as he, the quest is born, fulfilled and completed. All that endures is beauty, sensuality, colour and light.
© Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent | Mentions légales | Conception 2exVia avec MasterEdit®
